ReadabilitySix Very Groggy Thoughts about Election 2018 (Circa 10 am EST)
I had made it a point not to hear anything about the election at work yesterday, when sometime between 10 & 11 PM a co-worker who hates POTUS with a passion said that the GOP was keeping the House and Senate. Given that the pols had not yet closed in California and the west this seemed very odd but he insisted he had looked it up on the net during his final break. I turned on NPR when I got in the car sometime after midnight and the moment I heard the reporters voices sans the panic and despair of 2016 I knew he had gotten it wrong about the house. You can always tell by the tone of voice of the media how an election has gone.
I fell asleep sometime before 4 AM waiting for actual numbers by the time I dropped off the Democrats were 4 seats away from clinching control with about 30 house seats still uncalled. As of this moment (10:15 AM) there are still 20 hours seats not yet called but Dems already have 221 seats in the bank and lead in 8 more suggesting 229 seats for Dems. What’s really interesting here is that as of this moment it looks like Dems flipped 30 seats (the GOP flipped 4) meaning that to keep that majority in 2020 the Democrats have 11 votes to play with. That’s not much.
There is a lot of good news bad news stuff here. The bad news of course is the left actually won the house, given the prosperity generated by the Trump administration coupled with the violence by the left , it was a real shock as it means the country will see a lot less of the former and a lot more of the latter. Democrats also took several governors seats but not enough to get a majority. On the plus side with three senate races still uncalled and the GOP leading in two of them (Montana & Arizona) we are looking at 52 – 54 seats in the Senate meaning that it’s very like there will be a Collins/Murkowski/Romney proof majority for judges. In governors races not only has the GOP held MA and NH (no surprise there) Held Florida (huge relief there) Held VT & MD (huge surprise there) but they seem to be leading in CT (very big surprise there) and have GA well in hand (some relief there). This suggests that some folks here in the North east might finally have figured out that absolute Democrat power is a bad thing.
If I was Mitch McConnell I’d call the Senate back into session as soon as possible and make one last attempt to pass any house bills that have not yet been voted on or held up due to a lack of votes. With McCain out of the picture he has one more vote to play with and if the left object claiming the mandate of their win in the house he can claim a mandate by the wins in the senate for the upper chamber to advance the president’s agenda.
While I hate being wrong about any election, there are going to be several things inherently fun about the Democrats in control of the house for the next two years, beginning with the vote for speaker where all of those Dems who insisted they would not be for Pelosi end up electing her. Furthermore a lot of crazies managed to win in deep blue states meaning that the left will be dying to go full pussy hat while Pelosi tries to make sure her caucus doesn’t have a Kavanaugh moment that so disgusts voters that those 30 districts she flipped go the way of the Senate, and rest assured while the media will cover for her Trump will pounce. Furthermore if any bump in the road comes in the economy or in the stock market or any reversal at all President Trump now has a scapegoat to lay the entire blame on and don’t think for one moment he won’t do it.
Finally last night when I got home the wife was getting ready to leave for the Hospital as her sister in great pain had been taken there by ambulance she didn’t get home till 6 am and only briefly woke a few minutes ago to tell me that it’s kidney stones which while painful are not likely to be anything life threatening. This is an important reminder that when it comes down to it, what happens in your home and family is much more important than any political result and if you’re worrying more about the latter than the former you’re doing life wrong.
I had made it a point not to hear anything about the election at work yesterday, when sometime between 10 & 11 PM a co-worker who hates POTUS with a passion said that the GOP was keeping the House and Senate. Given that the pols had not yet closed in California and the west this seemed very odd but he insisted he had looked it up on the net during his final break. I turned on NPR when I got in the car sometime after midnight and the moment I heard the reporters voices sans the panic and despair of 2016 I knew he had gotten it wrong about the house. You can always tell by the tone of voice of the media how an election has gone.
I fell asleep sometime before 4 AM waiting for actual numbers by the time I dropped off the Democrats were 4 seats away from clinching control with about 30 house seats still uncalled. As of this moment (10:15 AM) there are still 20 hours seats not yet called but Dems already have 221 seats in the bank and lead in 8 more suggesting 229 seats for Dems. What’s really interesting here is that as of this moment it looks like Dems flipped 30 seats (the GOP flipped 4) meaning that to keep that majority in 2020 the Democrats have 11 votes to play with. That’s not much.
There is a lot of good news bad news stuff here. The bad news of course is the left actually won the house, given the prosperity generated by the Trump administration coupled with the violence by the left , it was a real shock as it means the country will see a lot less of the former and a lot more of the latter. Democrats also took several governors seats but not enough to get a majority. On the plus side with three senate races still uncalled and the GOP leading in two of them (Montana & Arizona) we are looking at 52-54 seats in the Senate meaning that it’s very like there will be a Collins/Murkowski/Romney proof majority for judges. In governors races not only has the GOP held MA and NH (no surprise there) Held Florida (huge relief there) Held VT & MD (huge surprise there) but they seem to be leading in CT (very big surprise there) and have GA well in hand (some relief there). This suggests that some folks here in the North east might finally have figured out that absolute Democrat power is a bad thing.
If I was Mitch McConnell I’d call the Senate back into session as soon as possible and make one last attempt to pass any house bills that have not yet been voted on or held up due to a lack of votes. With McCain out of the picture he has one more vote to play with and if the left object claiming the mandate of their win in the house he can claim a mandate by the wins in the senate for the upper chamber to advance the president’s agenda.
While I hate being wrong about any election, there are going to be several things inherently fun about the Democrats in control of the house for the next two years, beginning with the vote for speaker where all of those Dems who insisted they would not be for Pelosi end up electing her. Furthermore a lot of crazies managed to win in deep blue states meaning that the left will be dying to go full pussy hat while Pelosi tries to make sure her caucus doesn’t have a Kavanaugh moment that so disgusts voters that those 30 districts she flipped go the way of the Senate, and rest assured while the media will cover for her Trump will pounce. Furthermore if any bump in the road comes in the economy or in the stock market or any reversal at all President Trump now has a scapegoat to lay the entire blame on and don’t think for one moment he won’t do it.
Finally last night when I got home the wife was getting ready to leave for the Hospital as her sister in great pain had been taken there by ambulance she didn’t get home till 6 am and only briefly woke a few minutes ago to tell me that it’s kidney stones which while painful are not likely to be anything life threatening. This is an important reminder that when it comes down to it, what happens in your home and family is much more important than any political result and if you’re worrying more about the latter than the former you’re doing life wrong.
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